The attack left his owners losing hope of ever seeing their pet alive again.
"Poppy's just my heart. They become part of your family, part of your life," said Elizabeth Todd, dog owner.
You'll also understand why Monday was so terrible.
"It tore my heart out to think something had happened to him," Todd sad.
Her 9-year-old son Tim was there. He remembers hearing something awful.
"It was a terrible yelp. Real loud and we heard wings flapping and we looked back and Poppy was flying right up there," Tim said.
Some kind of large bird had picked up the 3-pound Chihuahua.
"It kinda looked like he was in both of his talons, and the bird was flying up, and he was looking down and whining," said Tim.
The family spent hours searching the nearby streets and neighborhoods for Poppy, but they couldn't find him. That made it hard to get to sleep.
"It was a very sleepless night because everything that kept going through my mind was my little dog being torn apart, and it was hard to imagine that he was going through that," said Elizabeth Todd.
After a night of tossing and turning, relief showed up right at the front door as Elizabeth's dad was leaving for work. It was Poppy, running to Elizabeth's arms.
"I just broke down in tears because my little Poppy was back," she said.
Poppy was in one piece, despite being a little dirty and scratched.
Wildlife experts say attacks like this one are rare and almost always lethal. The best advice for owners of small dogs is to keep them on a leash or just stay close by when they're outdoors.
